


Before the Storm

by crossingwinter



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: F/M, Gen, Mid-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-19
Updated: 2016-09-19
Packaged: 2018-08-16 01:14:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8080975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crossingwinter/pseuds/crossingwinter
Summary: “Gilly, this is Alleras the Sphinx. Alleras…” his voice trailed away. Gilly was staring at Alleras, her eyes narrowed. “Alleras is studying at the Citadel as well,” he explained. “He’s…” He’s like Jon, he almost says, but Gilly doesn’t like Jon very much, not since Jon made her switch her baby for Dalla’s.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [yaakov](https://archiveofourown.org/users/yaakov/gifts).



“Slayer,” comes a voice, and Sam groans in his sleep. _A little while longer. Just a little while. Jon can wait._ It’s so warm in his bed and—  
  
Too warm.  
  
He opens his eyes, and he’s in the dry cell that he’d spent the last two days in. The knocking at the door isn’t one of his brothers—it’s the Sphinx. “Coming,” he says, his voice raspy from sleep. He rolls off the mattress and gets to his feet. He’d been up all night reading, and had gone to sleep still dressed in his blacks.  
  
He pours some water into a basin and throws some on his face to wake him more. The sun is shining, and he looks out of his window into a courtyard. He sees acolytes walking with books and papers in their arms, and hardly a care in the world. _Forge your chain quickly,_ Marwyn had told him. _I need to get back north._ If he could find a ship to take him…  
  
He opens the door and finds the Sphinx leaning against the wall by his door. He pushes himself off it and gives Sam a once-over. “So you did sleep,” he says.  
  
“Some,” Sam admits. “Where to today?” Alleras has been guiding him the past few days, as Marwyn had told him, and Sam has found himself already taking to the boy. _He’s like Jon._ Sam can’t place how…something about the both of them is the same, though. It’s an easy comparison to make in some ways—both quick and observant, seeing more than you think they will. But there’s something else about him… _That he’s taking time to be kind to me,_ Sam almost thinks, but that’s not it either.  
  
“Out,” Alleras says.  
  
“What?”  
  
“A Summer Islander came by this morning, looking for Fat Sam. You’re the only Fat Sam here, and the only Sam I know who’s spent time with Summer Islanders lately, but she wouldn’t say what she wanted.”  
  
“Kojja Mo,” Sam said at once, his mind flying to Gilly. Surely she was all right. Xhondo had promised she’d be safe aboard the Cinnamon Wind. Surely they weren’t leaving already. They’d only just arrived. Sam suddenly had a very bad feeling. “Thank you,” he said and he hurried past Alleras.  
  
He somehow wasn’t surprised that Alleras fell into stride next to him, his long legs keeping easy pace with Sam’s short fat ones. “If they’re leaving, we’ll find a place for her. There are plenty of places she could work for her keep in the city.”  
  
Sam didn’t like that idea. “She won’t want to be alone,” he said. “She…I should get her to Horn Hill if I can. I’ll pay for passage or…” _Or go with her myself._ That would be easier, especially with his father off to the north. He’d see his mother again, and his sisters, and explain everything.  
  
“We’ll find a place for her to stay. We can’t sneak her into the Citadel. They don’t let women in.” There was almost a laugh to his voice as he said those words.  
  
Together, they made their way out of the Citadel, and through the city. Sam was breathing heavily, and sweating, but he kept his pace up. It was easier to move fast here than it had been north of the wall, when he thought his legs would go out from under him. They reached the port and found the Cinnamon Wind and Kojja Mo standing by her gangplank.  
  
She waved at Sam, then glanced at Alleras and said something in the Summer Tongue. Alleras responded easily. “Everything all right?” Sam asked.  
  
Kojja Mo pointed to the horizon. There was smoke, and Sam shuddered. “My father wants to sail now. We have the wind with us, and we can sail faster than any longship. Gilly does not want to leave you behind.”  
  
Sam’s stomach rolled as he set foot on deck. Gilly was sitting on the steps to the foredeck, the babe in her arms. “Sam,” she said to him, getting to her feet.  
  
“This is Gilly?” the Sphinx asked Sam, and Sam nodded.  
  
“Gilly, this is Alleras the Sphinx. Alleras…” his voice trailed away. Gilly was staring at Alleras, her eyes narrowed. “Alleras is studying at the Citadel as well,” he explained. “He’s…” _He’s like Jon,_ he almost says, but Gilly doesn’t like Jon very much, not since Jon made her switch her baby for Dalla’s.  
  
“He’s?” Gilly prompts, her voice odd.  
  
“I’m showing Sam about, making sure he gets everywhere all right,” Alleras says breezily. “Welcome to the South, Gilly.”  
  
Gilly’s mouth is closed tight, and she holds Dalla’s boy close to her. There’s a crease to her brow.  
  
“It’s all right,” Sam says. “Alleras is a friend. He’s Dornish, from east of here.”  
  
“Where should I go?” Gilly asks Sam, turning her eyes away from Alleras.  
  
“We’ll arrange it,” Alleras says. “I know some inns.”  
  
“Will you be there?” she asks Sam.  
  
“I’ll be in the Citadel,” but he sees from her face that this doesn’t please her as far as ideas go. “If I could bring you in, I would. They don’t let women in,” he tells her.  
  
“They don’t?” Gilly doesn’t sound like she believes him, and her eyes are back on Alleras.  
  
It’s the first time Sam’s seen the Sphinx look at all uncomfortable. The other man has always had an easy confidence, but now Alleras shifts from one foot to the other. “I suppose we could try…” he says quietly. “The baby’s the challenge. He’ll cry and people will hear it.”  
  
“It’s only for a few days—until I can arrange for Gilly to go to Horn Hill,” Sam says quickly, hopefully. Surely they can manage for a few days. “She can stay in my room with me and—”  
  
He stops short, and tries not to remember the night when they’d…they’re back on land now. And Sam’s about to forge his chain—another reason they can’t be together as if his Blacks weren’t enough of one. _She’ll be safest with me,_ he thinks. _At least for now._  
  
Alleras thinks for a moment. “Come on,” he says, and hurries back down the deck. He says something quick to Kojja Mo, and Sam and Gilly bid her goodbye as well, but even as Gilly hugs the woman, Alleras is already down the dock.  
  
“Alleras—wait!” Sam calls.  
  
“I’ll meet you at the Rusted Rose,” Alleras calls.  
  
“I don’t know where that is,” Sam mutters, looking at Gilly. They’ll find out.  
  
“I hope they are as fast as they say they’ll be,” Gilly says nervously. She glances at the horizon and sees the smoke in the distance. _All the more reason for you to come into the Citadel with me,_ Sam thinks.  
  
They find the Rusted Rose more easily than Sam expects, and it’s not long before Alleras joins them, a large basket in his arms. He says a quick word to the innkeep, and hands over a coin, and a moment they’re heading into a room.  
  
Alleras looks Gilly dead in the eye. “We’ll need to cut your hair,” he says. “And bind your chest up. And put you in pants and a tunic.”  
  
Sam’s eyes bug out of his head. “That won’t work,” he says at once. “They’ll see right through it.” But Alleras ignores him.  
  
“You trust me?”  
  
Gilly doesn’t say a word. Her eyes are narrowed again, and Alleras pulls a length of cloth and some scissors from his basket. Gilly sits down on a stool and a moment later, Alleras has cut off her braid. He helps her shrug out of her dress and Sam finds his jaw dropping at how easily Gilly steps from the dress in Alleras’ presence. Alleras doesn’t make her take off the underdress at least as he begins to wrap the cloth around her breasts with a hand that’s surprisingly practiced.  
  
“I’ll leak on it,” Gilly says.”  
  
“We’ll wrap a few layers,” Alleras says.  
  
“It hurts.”  
  
“It’s only for a little bit,” he says. “Not for a long time.”  
  
“How do—” Gilly begins, but Alleras cuts her off.  
  
“Questions later. I’m focusing.”  
  
Gilly looks at Sam, then back at Alleras, and she nods, then winces. “Ow.”  
  
“You’ll get used to it,” Alleras says, not unkindly.  
  
“I’ve been through worse,” she says and for a moment her eyes are distant. _Leaving the babe behind,_ Sam thinks, _And whatever Craster did to her…_  
  
No wonder she hadn’t hesitated. _She’s braver than I am._ Sam’s heart swells with pride.  
  
Alleras hands Gilly a tunic, and some trousers, which she puts on slowly. She tucks her underdress into the top of the trousers and looks plump, but surprisingly not like a woman at all. Alleras loads her dress into the basket then takes the baby and places it in the basket, which he hands to Sam.  
  
“I’ll take her in, they won’t notice it as much if she’s with me,” he says. “You take the basket.”  
  
“Don’t cry,” Sam tells the babe as Gilly and Alleras move ahead, and he sees them talking, heads bent together. He walks slowly, watching them at the distance. No one stops them as they enter the Citadel, and no one stops Sam either, and Dalla’s boy doesn’t cry, and Sam could cry with relief. _Now to keep him from crying for the next few days…_  
  
He reaches his room and finds Alleras and Gilly waiting for him. He unlocks the door and they all go inside, and Gilly tugs off the tunic and begins to unwrap her chest.  
  
“Thank you,” she says to Alleras.  
  
Alleras shrugs. “Don’t tell anyone.”  
  
“Who would she tell? She’s staying here until we can sneak her out again,” Sam says.  
  
Gilly smiles and sighs. “That’s better,” she says, throwing the linen across the room. She goes and plucks the babe out of the basket and cradles him to her.  
  
“Well, we’ve got to run,” Alleras tells Gilly. “We’ve got lessons to get to.”  
  
“Sam,” Gilly says and Sam turns to her. He hears the door close and Alleras is gone, giving them a quiet moment. “I like…I like him. He’s good.”  
  
“He is,” Sam sighs. _Like Jon, only Jon never helped Gilly. Not even in the beginning._ He’d hardly even had to ask Alleras.  
  
“I’ll keep him quiet,” Gilly says, nodding to the babe.  
  
“I’ll be back as soon as I can.”  
  
For a moment they stand there, looking at one another. Then the baby fusses and Gilly turns away from Sam to give him her breast, and Sam goes to the door, closing it and locking Gilly in safely behind.


End file.
